Volunteers make railroad ties for display

Three people are helping to manufacture stacks of railroad ties for a display at the Paradise Center. Instead of being soaked in creosote, the volunteers will use glue and black paint and instead of being eight and a half feet long and weighing 100 to 300 pounds, they are just over an inch in length and weigh mere ounces.

Doris Haines and Donna Hadley, both of Plains, and Gary Sanks of Paradise spent more than an hour stacking the HO scale railroad ties for the Paradise Center's train display room, an ongoing project that fills a room on the center's second floor. Janelle Marley of Plains was not there, but she is also helping with the ties. Volunteers last year put together the first batch of the tiny ties - 14,000 of them - for the tie plant display. This batch will amount to 10,000 of them, said Dave Colyer, president of the Paradise Center and one of the primary coordinators of the railroad room.

The stacks will range from a fraction of an inch high to around two inches high. The largest stacks will have about 140 ties, said Haines, who also helped with the first batch of ties. Haines said that working with the small pieces of wood was a little hard at first, but it got easier. "It takes patience. Once you got the hang of it, it wasn't so bad," said Haines, who stacked around 2,000 ties at the center last year. Hadley also did more than 2,000 last year.

Haines and Plains resident Bill Beck will use their Thrivent Financial cards to pay for plexiglas that will cover one of the display tables. Thrivent Financial is a nonprofit organization affiliated with nondenominational churches that helps with community projects. The Thrivent cards will pay about $500 of the plexiglass, which Colyer guesses will total between $750-$1,000. Sanks is the latest person to become a member of the center's board of directors after recently moving from Missoula to Paradise, but he's no stranger to the community or the school. He grew up in Paradise and was one of Colyer's classmates in first, second and third grades in the very room he was gluing railroad ties. Sanks attended Paradise School from 1961-1969.

The railroad room project started in 2017 and the work is being all done by around 25 volunteers with Colyer and Mac Hall leading the coordination efforts. "We have made a tremendous amount of progress on the railroad displays. I think people should know the majority of the planning and thousands of hours of backbreaking physical labor has been donated to the center's success," said Colyer.

The train room has numerous artifacts spanning nearly 100 years of railroad history in Paradise and two long customized display counters that depict the railroad and the town of Paradise of the 1930s-1970s, now with more than 150 feet of train tracks. The displays include styrofoam and plaster landscaping and an assortment of structures, including the 21.5-inch long retort structure, the main building of the tie plant, built by Colyer, who worked at the tie plant for 10 years and was on duty when the tie plant burned down in 1982. The tie plant and most of the railroad buildings will be on the smaller table, which will show stacks of the replica ties, some painted to indicate being treated with creosote, and some unpainted.

Paradise resident Judy Stephens bought two brass Northern Pacific steam engines while wintering south a few years ago, according to Colyer, who added that they'll be lead units for the early version of the passenger train. The center recently received a Northern Pacific steam engine and seven passenger cars. Vern Paull of Paradise bought the steam engine and donated it. His father was part of a train crew, said Colyer. Hall found the cars on eBay. "This is a perfect replica of the cars and trains from 1935 to 1937," said Hall, a model railroad hobbyist for some 60 years and a center board member. Hall is in the process of building the base where the model of the school and the cemetery will go. He's also constructing Schoolhouse Hill Road.

Colyer said they hope to have three train sets - two freight and one passenger - in operation on the larger display. Hall is looking into the possibility of having a digital command control in order to run multiple trains at the same time. The system would be controlled from a laptop and would include train sounds.

Plains resident Terry Christensen is building a replica of the 114-year-old schoolhouse, which was built by the railroad, as was most of the town, said Colyer. Christensen finished the 62-inch long roundhouse in 2022. It was an intricate project that took over three years. "The schoolhouse is a big part of the town display. I hope at least a rough scaled model will be ready for display when we open up. We are hoping to be open on Memorial Day weekend," said Colyer, who added that they are always looking for motivated volunteers for the various projects at the center, including a veterans memorial, which they've been talking about since the center began. "You can't go wrong when it comes to honoring our veterans," he said.

Colyer hopes to have most of the tie plant done by June, but he believes the town display is at least two years away. "Modeling the town is a huge task. Even though kits are available for some of the buildings, take the Paradise Mercantile, some will have to be made from scratch," said Colyer. He said that Marc Childress of Plains finished the "Beanery" cafe. Dennis Bert from Paradise is working on the coal dock and Chris Frissell of Polson is building the hotel. Colyer noted that it's impossible to get every home or building from the 1930s era included in the display because of limited space. He said the first buildings constructed by the Northern Pacific are a priority, but there's a chance not all of those will be displayed. The display will show the original layout of the town, but some of the alleys may have changed.

The Paradise Center Railroad Club meets each Tuesday and Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Railroad room at the center. People can send donations to the Paradise Center, Box 162, Paradise, MT, 59856.